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Acknowledgements
This report was written by Nick Martlew, Senior Humanitarian Advocacy Adviser
at Save the Children. The research was supported by Nick Pope, with additional
assistance from Misty Buswell.
Testimonies were collected by Mona Monzer, Cat Carter, and Mohamad Al Asmar.
Photos by Jonathan Hymans. (All are Save the Children staff.)
The report also includes findings from an unpublished study, the Bahcesehir Study
of Syrian Refugee Children in Turkey, conducted by a team of researchers for
Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey. The research team was led by Dr Serap
Ozer of Bahcesehir University, Dr Selcuk R Sirin of New York University, and
Dr Brit Oppedal of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The study findings
are available from the authors on request.
The children’s drawings in this report were gathered as part of the Bahcesehir study.

All names of children and parents who shared their stories have been
changed to protect identities.

“My message to the world? The war should
stop in Syria so we could be able to go back to
our country.”

Nidal,* 6

From the very beginning of the crisis in Syria, children
have been its forgotten victims – facing death, trauma
and suffering, and deprived of basic humanitarian aid.
Save the Children estimates that nearly 2 million
children are in need of assistance in Syria.
Through Save the Children’s work in Syria and the
region, we are witnessing what is happening to
children and the misery and fear they are living with
every day. The only way to stop their suffering is to
bring an end to the war. A larger humanitarian action
response is absolutely essential, but we also recognise
that, without peace, for children in Syria there will
only be more death, and more destruction.

“We had to stay in one room, all of us… I
watched my father leave, and watched as my
father was shot outside our home… I started to
cry, I was so sad. We were living a normal life, we
had enough food… Now, we depend on others.
Everything changed for me that day.”

Yasmine, 12

This report shows how the conflict is affecting all
aspects of children’s lives. Families are struggling to
find a safe place to stay, as nearly 3 million buildings
have been damaged or destroyed. The lines of
fighting move almost daily, so families often do not
know if the place they’ve settled in today will be safe
tomorrow. Most displaced families share overcrowded
apartments and houses, but an estimated 80,000
internally displaced people are sleeping out in caves,
parks or barns.
With more than 5,000 people being killed each
month, the killing is touching everyone: a new
study by a research team at Bahcesehir University
in Turkey found that three in every four Syrian

*

iv

children interviewed had lost a loved one because
of the fighting. Children are being killed and maimed
too, including by the indiscriminate use of shells,
mortars and rockets. In one area of Damascus that
was formerly home to almost 2 million people,
heavy weapons were used in 247 separate recorded
incidents in January 2013 alone.
Children are increasingly being put directly in harm’s
way as they are being recruited by armed groups and
forces. There have even been reports that children as
young as eight have been used as human shields.
Conflict is threatening children’s lives in Syria from
their first days of life. Mothers and their newborns
are at greater risk of complications during childbirth.
Many hospitals and health workers are being
deliberately attacked, so people are reluctant to take
the risk of going to hospital; across the country, a
third of hospitals have been put out of action. This
means more births are taking place at home, without
a skilled birth attendant. There is also a worrying
trend of attacks, mostly by Syrian government forces,
on hospitals in contested areas. We have seen how
even hospitals that have managed to stay open are
finding it difficult to provide a high standard of care,
with little or no heating, exhausted doctors, and
intermittent electricity supply.
Children’s access to healthcare is massively reduced
while the risks to their health grow. In many areas,
water and sewage systems have been destroyed or
made inaccessible by violence or displacement; in one
area where Save the Children works, almost every
family told us they did not have safe access to clean
toilets. These unsanitary conditions are contributing
to the growing number of cases of children suffering
diarrhoea – the biggest killer of children globally.
Schools should be a safe haven for children. But
2,000 schools in Syria have been damaged during
the conflict, and many are closed because they have
become temporary shelters for displaced people.

All names of children and their family members who shared their stories have been changed to protect identities.

Experience in other conflict settings where Save the
Children works shows that the longer children are
out of school, the less likely they are to ever go back,
threatening their own futures and the future of
the country.

“I liked going to school… We used to write and
play. When I want to remember something
happy, it is playing with my friends on the swings.
We laughed. I miss them.
“At the beginning… there wasn’t shelling at my
school, but after some time the shelling started.
I stopped going to school when the shelling
started. It wasn’t safe. I feel sad that my school
was burned because my school reminds me of
my friends. I love going to school.”

Noura, 10

Mills, factories and roads are also being damaged and
farmland threatened by shelling. As a result, most
parts of the country are experiencing shortages of
flour, forcing food prices beyond the reach of the
poorest families. Combined with an alarming drop in
the proportion of mothers breastfeeding their infants,
this is leading to the first signs of increasing levels of
child malnutrition in Syria.
It is not just Syrian citizens whose lives are being
affected by the war. Non-nationals who were living as
refugees in Syria (including large numbers of Iraqis and
Palestinians) have limited access to assistance and are
becoming ever more vulnerable.
Despite the efforts of the United Nations (UN) and
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), millions of
people in desperate need in Syria are not receiving
enough humanitarian assistance. Some areas have
had very little aid or none at all. Insecurity is one
of the biggest constraints: 15 aid workers in Syria
have lost their lives in the past two years. Access is
another huge obstacle, as control of access routes
shifts continually with the fighting. This means that
agencies sometimes have to negotiate more than
20 checkpoints for one journey, with each negotiation

taking time; and it only takes one checkpoint to refuse
passage for the entire aid delivery to be halted.
There are also few organisations – local or
international – with the skills and systems in place
in Syria to respond to the massive scale of needs.
Some Syrian agencies delivering assistance have strong
political affiliations with one side of the conflict,
representing a challenge to the principles of humanity
and impartiality, which are essential to reach those
most in need.
Save the Children is calling on the international
community to take urgent action to address some
of these challenges so that children and their families
can receive the assistance they so desperately need.
First and foremost, the UN Security Council must
unite behind a plan that will bring about an end
to the violence and ensure that humanitarian
aid reaches children throughout Syria.
In addition:
• The international community must press
urgently and explicitly for parties to the conflict
to end the recruitment and use of children in
military activities, and cooperate with the UN to
ensure that all violations of children’s rights are
documented so that those responsible can be held
to account.
• International donors should quickly turn pledges
into funding and deliver assistance on the ground
in a way that is needs-based, sustained, flexible,
and coordinated.

“I wasn’t thinking; I just wanted to protect my
children. I didn’t want anything else. I wasn’t even
thinking; I just wanted to keep my children safe.
If I die it is fine… but not my children. I want to
keep them safe…
“Syria is our country and we want to go back
there. We don’t know who is right and who
is wrong, but I know we civilians are paying
the price.”

Hiba

v

safa

“I want to tell the world about the situation in
Syria… There is no fuel, no electricity, no food.
This is the situation. There is shelling, explosions,
gunfire… violence, death. No one is working,
there are no jobs. People are just surviving day to
day, living for the sake of living.

years… killing, fleeing. I wish the world could see
the truth. I wish you could.
“I don’t think there is a single child untouched
by this war. Everyone has seen death, everyone
has lost someone. I know no one who has not
suffered as we have. It is on such a scale.

“Every human being should act – they should
“When the world finally sees what is happening
stop this violence. It is killing women and children.
in Syria, when you go to villages beyond those you
People are fleeing. We cannot bear this… This,
are ‘allowed’ into – you will not have the words.
this is too much…
Everything is destroyed. A people is destroyed.
“I hope that you can tell the entire world what
“You… will not be able to bear what you will
I have said here, what I have seen. I am only
see in Syria. We know what is happening, but the
one person, but every person will say the same.
world is not listening.”
We are tired… tired of this. It has been two

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

A refugee settlement near the Syrian border

vi

Introduction

“Once, armed men chased us. They shot at [the
three of] us and it hit the ground near my foot so
I jumped. It hit below my foot and it touched my
shoe but I kept running. We reached a wall and
couldn’t run any more.
“I was scared, very scared. I was scared and my
friends too. We were surrounded by walls. So
we chose to jump over one wall. When we ran
through the garden, we saw men with guns. They
asked us why we were running. We told them we
were being followed. They came with us and ran
with us and we reached another wall, and one
of them carried me over and my other friend
jumped by himself. Another friend they caught,
I don’t know what happened to him.
“My message to the world? The war should
stop in Syria so we could be able to go back to
our country.”

Nidal, 6

From the very beginning, children have been the
forgotten victims of Syria’s horrendous war. Today,
nearly 2 million children are in need of assistance.1
Six months into the conflict, 1,000 people were dying
each month; now, it is 5,000 people each month.2 The
fighting is on such a scale that few children have been
spared feeling its effects. Three in every four Syrian
refugee children interviewed as part of new research
by Bahcesehir University, Turkey, had experienced the
death of a loved one due to the conflict.3
This report bears testimony to the suffering of Syria’s
children. Deprived of food, water, healthcare; denied
safety; their homes and communities destroyed; in a
war being fought ferociously throughout the country,
children above all are paying the price.
The chaotic reality of the conflict makes it difficult to
gather comprehensive, definitive data. The information
on which this report is based has been gathered
through Save the Children’s response to the crisis
on the ground, as well as the experience of other

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

Sana, three. Her older sister
Yasmine explains what
happened to their family
on page 4.

1

childhood under fire
Drawing by a Syrian refugee child

agencies working in the country. The interviews
carried out with children and their parents – all of
whose names have been changed – provide powerful
testimony to the devastating impact of the war on
every aspect of children’s lives today.
Through our work in Syria and the region, Save the
Children is witnessing first-hand the misery being
inflicted on children. They are telling us their stories
and they want them to be heard. We are working
tirelessly in Syria – and with refugees in Iraq, Jordan,
and Lebanon – to meet the enormous humanitarian
needs of children and their families.
An estimated 4 million people are in need of
assistance within Syria, in addition to more than
1 million who have fled to neighbouring countries.4
The United Nations (UN) and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) are doing what they can to
reach people in need by whatever channels available
to them, and millions of people have already received
food or other forms of assistance. Despite these
efforts, children are not receiving the help they
need.5 This report is an urgent call to action: the
international community must take stronger action
to support humanitarian efforts, based solely on the
needs and rights of those affected by the conflict,

and independent of any political interests. The scale
of the crisis demands a concerted, coordinated, and
large-scale response.
Stopping the war is the fastest way to stop the
suffering and start the process of reconciliation and
rebuilding. Humanitarian action is absolutely essential,
but we also recognise that without peace, for
children in Syria there will only be more death, more
destruction; the legacy of this conflict grows more
painful and costly with every day of fighting. The only
way to stop the suffering is to bring an end to the war.
The first part of this report sets out how Syrian
children’s lives are being affected by the conflict,
from the places they have to live to the violence
they have to fear; the impact on their education
and on their health. Children and parents describe
in their own words how the war has affected their
lives and the lives of their loved ones. The report
then gives an overview of the challenges involved in
delivering a humanitarian response of the scale and
quality needed. Finally, we present Save the Children’s
recommendations for how to overcome these
challenges to ensure that children’s needs for basic
survival and protection are met.*

The report includes information from different parts of Syria, but where that information could compromise the security
of children, their families and communities, or the agencies involved in the humanitarian response, we do not cite a location.

*

2

The impact of war
on children
As Safa’s story shows (see page vi), the civil
war raging throughout Syria is devastating
all aspects of children’s lives. This section
describes some of the ways the fighting is
affecting children, beginning with the desperate
shelter conditions for the millions of people
inside Syria who have had to flee their homes.
It then looks at the impact of the war on
children’s health, protection, education, and
food security.

Sheltering from the storm
The fighting has damaged or destroyed an estimated
2.9 million buildings.6 As a result of the destruction,
3 million people (one in seven Syrians) – people like
Hiba and her family – have had to flee their homes.7
A third of them have sought refuge in neighbouring
countries (see box on page 5), but 2 million people
remain displaced within Syria.
In some areas, the entire population of a town has
fled. In others, people who had held on for months
amid heavy fighting finally had to flee as they could
no longer meet their basic needs. As Abu, a father in
Damascus, told Save the Children: “Why did we leave?
We left because of the explosions, the constant shelling.
Everything was a struggle, nothing was available – no food,
no water.” For many people, ongoing fighting makes it
too risky to move to the border. For others, especially
the poorest families, fleeing the country is not an
option as they simply cannot afford the transport to
get to the border.8
The options open to families displaced within Syria
are bleak. The lines of fighting move almost daily,
so people often do not know if the place they have
settled in today will be safe tomorrow. Most people
seek refuge with friends or relatives in whatever space
they can spare – apartments, outhouses, even chicken
sheds. The result is often extreme overcrowding, with

up to 50 children living in one house.13 Thousands
of people either have no extended family to turn to
or cannot reach them. It is estimated that 80,000
internally displaced people (IDPs) are sleeping out in
caves, parks or barns.14
Displaced people are receiving some temporary
shelters and basic items provided by Syrian
or international humanitarian agencies, but
implementation challenges (described below) mean
the level of assistance is far below international
standards. Save the Children is seeing how this
particularly affects girls: the shelters that thousands
of families are living in are cramped, affording little
personal privacy; girls are often afraid to go outside,
especially at night, as the presence of armed men
contributes to a pervasive fear of sexual violence.15
Families seeking refuge inside Syria have had to
endure two winters that saw snow fall across much
of the country, with temperatures as low as -8°C.16
Families fled, often without enough time to gather
winter clothing for children.17 This winter, rationing
of the power supply severely limited electric heating.
Shortages of fuel pushed the price of kerosene up by
as much as 500%, making it impossible for the poorest
families to heat their shelters; in one area, 80% of
households could not afford heating.18 This makes
warm shelters and blankets all the more important,
but in 2012 only 30% of those who needed blankets
or mattresses received them.19
This lack of safe and protective shelter is putting
children’s health at risk. In the depths of this winter,
children aged 5 to 14 suffered the largest proportion
of flu-like illness – 38% of all registered cases in
Syria.20 In some cases, children’s lives have been put
directly at risk: some shelters have accidentally caught
fire, killing several children, because people made open
fires as the only way of keeping warm.21
The next section shows in more detail the many
ways in which the health of Syria’s children is under
constant assault.

3

yasmine, 12
“Most of the houses were being hit.
We had to stay in one room, all of
us. The other rooms were being hit…
The shelling was constant, I was
very scared.
“I felt so afraid. I knew we could not
move from that one room. There
were 13 of us… crammed into one
room. We did not leave that room for
two weeks. It was always so loud.

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

“My father left the room. I watched
my father leave, and watched as my
father was shot outside our home…
I started to cry, I was so sad. We
were living a normal life, we had
enough food. Now, we depend
on others. Everything changed
for me that day.”

4

This report focuses on the situation for children
inside Syria, but the humanitarian crisis has
spilled over the country’s borders as more and
more people flee their homes and seek refuge in
neighbouring countries. As of March 2013, there
were more than 1 million people – 52% of them
children – registered as refugees or awaiting
registration, with nearly 5,000 more every day.9
The real number of refugees is likely to be much
higher, as around 40–50% of refugees outside the
established camps have not registered with the
United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR – often
in order to protect their identities.10

Save the Children is working with UNHCR and
other UN agencies, and the host governments
in Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, to ensure that all
vulnerable groups get the assistance and protection
they need. We are providing support to refugees
(whether registered or unregistered) and host
communities, as well as non-Syrians fleeing the
country, such as Palestinians and Iraqis. As of March
2013, we had provided much-needed assistance
to more than 240,000 people across the region,
including shelter, food, and protection for children.

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

Jordan and Lebanon are home to the largest
number of refugees, each with more than a quarter
of a million Syrian people registered or awaiting
registration. More than 180,000 Syrians have sought
refuge in Turkey and more than 100,000 in Iraq,
nearly 10% of whom are in Anbar province, where
agencies like Save the Children have to manage the
insecurity to try to meet refugees’ basic needs.11

The refugee crisis is most visible at Za’atari camp
in Jordan, where the government and humanitarian
agencies are working hard to expand the provision
of essential services like shelter and water. However,
across the region, 70% of refugees are not in camps
but are instead living in informal settlements or
with extended family and friends, many of whom
are themselves very vulnerable.12

The impact of war on children

The regional refugee crisis

A refugee settlement near the Syrian border

5

Hiba
Hiba fled Syria with her daughter and severely
disabled son.
“Hospitals in Syria are being targeted with shelling. The
one I took my son to for physiotherapy sessions is not
operating any more. I couldn’t put him in a car and take
him to a doctor, and then to which hospital? The roads
were too difficult.
“I don’t know why some hospitals were shut down. Some
were hit in the shelling, others were untouched; yet the
roads were too dangerous for us to travel anyway. Any
time I want to take him out, it’s dangerous for us. We stay
at home, we call the doctor, but we can never reach him.
“How do I feel? Any mother’s heart would break seeing
her son in this state… I am helpless. When I see him tired,
I wish it’s me instead. He gets stiff and faints; his eyes
stare in vain, and this is very hard for me… Sometimes
I cry, but I can’t do anything.”

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

“Everyone is affected by this war. My daughter is 13 years
old and goes crazy every time she hears a noise. Once
the bombs started we ran… I couldn’t take my son’s

Hiba with her
granddaughter

6

wheelchair, so I had to carry him, and run. We thought it is
better for us to die in the street than under the rubble of
our house. We ran at 3 in the morning and we didn’t know
where to go. We were just running because we didn’t want
to die under the rubble.
“I wasn’t thinking; I just wanted to protect my children.
I didn’t want anything else. I just wanted to keep my
children safe. If I die it is fine… but not my children.
I want to keep them safe.
“In the morning we came back to our home, but it was
ruined. There’s no place for us to go to, no safe space to go
to at all. I think there is no safe space in Syria. It is beyond
imagining.
“I cried and shouted but there was nothing else I could do.
What can we say? Nothing.There is no human being living
that wouldn’t be sad. We worked all our life to build our
home and suddenly we lose it all.
“Syria is our country and we want to go back there. We
don’t know who is right and who is wrong, but I know we
civilians are paying the price.”

The civil war is being waged in every city in Syria,
affecting everyone’s health and their ability to get
healthcare when they need it. Most of those injured
by gunshots are young men, over the age of 18. But
across the country, from being unable to find or afford
medication to being injured by explosive weapons,
children are feeling the effects. As Ara’s story shows,
some children’s health is at risk from the moment
they are born.
Stories like Ara’s are far from unique. Save the
Children has found that getting access to safe birthing
facilities can be a dangerous, sometimes impossible
struggle for mothers and midwives. The lack of
neo-natal care and specialist medics, as well as the
damage to health facilities, mean that many births
are now taking place in people’s homes, temporary

homes or shelters, without a skilled birth attendant
who can assist with any complications. Given the
difficult living conditions and the huge challenge of
adequate sanitation for displaced people and their
host families (described below), mothers and their
newborns are at greater risk.22
Young children’s health is also at greater risk now
because the civil war has disrupted or completely
stopped routine vaccinations, including for measles
and polio. While UNICEF managed to conduct
a vaccination campaign that reached 1.4 million
children, often in very difficult circumstances, getting
vaccinations into Rural Damascus governorate and
also into opposition-controlled areas of northern
Syria has proved immensely challenging. By January
2013, no more than a third of children had been
vaccinated in the north of Syria; with every passing
day, the potential for an epidemic increases.23

The impact of war on children

Staying alive, staying healthy

Ara
Ara has three children.
“I was very sick during my pregnancy but there were
no doctors, no hospitals. It wasn’t like my other
pregnancies – I had no scans, no check-ups.
“It was morning when the contractions started. They
carried on all day, I remember that I was so tired. I’ve
always delivered in hospital before, never at home. After
nightfall, I told my family that I must go to hospital, but
they knew there was no way we could get through safely,
shells were already falling. “Men shoot at everything
they see at night, and there are so many checkpoints
– we would never get past. Even if we did get through,
where would we go? There are no hospitals now, only a
makeshift clinic far away.
“Around 4am, I started to deliver, I was terrified. I was in
so much pain, I thought I would die. There was a terrible
complication in my birth – and I thank God some of my
neighbours helped a brave midwife to get through to me.
The cord was wrapped around my baby’s neck – the
midwife saved my baby boy’s life, and mine too I think.

“My daughter was there for the birth, and she was
terrified about the whole situation. She couldn’t deal
with what happened all around her – especially the
shelling, and the screaming.
“It’s because of these shells, the endless explosions,
that I left my home. I left a few months after this birth,
coming from my home only three days ago. For the
journey, I carried my baby. I have other children and I
wished I could carry all of them, but I couldn’t – so they
had to run for themselves. People were dying all around
us, houses became rubble.
“If you ever went into Syria you will see something
you’ve never seen before. It is not something you can
believe…
“The children that are still in Syria… they are dying. It
feels as though no one is helping, nothing is changing.
Why can’t you help them?”

7

childhood under fire

Attacks targeting health facilities
and health workers
These growing threats to children’s health in Syria are
all the more alarming given the increasing devastation
to health facilities and attacks on health workers, as
Hiba’s experience (see case study) vividly shows.24
This destruction is all too often the result of a
targeted attack on health facilities: agencies working
in Syria report that they are seeing a continued trend
of attacks, mostly by Syrian government forces, on
hospitals in contested areas. This appalling trend is in
contravention of international humanitarian law, and
means people are afraid to go to hospitals even when
they are in urgent need of treatment.25 In Deir ez
Zor governorate, for example, every single hospital
has been damaged, while in Aleppo governorate,
two-thirds of hospitals are no longer functioning.
Across the country, more than half of Syria’s hospitals
have been damaged, and nearly a third have been put
completely out of action.26
Even hospitals that are still functioning are not able
to deal with the growing numbers of people who

need treatment. In one area, Save the Children found
hospitals with little or no heating, exhausted doctors,
intermittent electricity supply, and woeful conditions
for paediatric patients – despite the best efforts of
courageous and committed staff who were continuing
to work in such difficult conditions.27
The fighting in cities and reports of targeted attacks
on doctors mean that many medical staff fear for
their lives when they travel to work. Understandably,
many decide they simply cannot take the risk: 50%
of doctors are reported to have fled Homs, and
according to one account, the number of medics
practising in and around Aleppo has fallen from 5,000
to just 36.28
Trapped in war and poverty
The fighting has made it much more difficult for
people to get to hospitals and other health facilities
for treatment, and it has also led to a major shortage
of medicines in many areas, as Save the Children
has witnessed. Before the conflict began, almost all
drugs used in Syria were produced in-country.29

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

Souha, three, at a refugee settlement near the Syrian border

8

The poorest families’ health is also at greater
risk, because they are more likely to be living in
overcrowded communal shelters with little or no
access to clean water and adequate sanitation. More
and more children are suffering from diarrhoea,
hepatitis A, upper respiratory tract infections, and
skin rashes because of the deterioration in sanitation
conditions.31 In one rural area where Save the
Children is responding to the crisis, almost every
displaced family said they lacked safe access to clean
toilets. In many cases, parents feared for the safety of
their daughters with the presence of so many men
carrying weapons.32

Even in cities, children now have to go to the toilet
in public spaces because damage to the water and
sewage system means that toilet flushes no longer
work. In addition, the proportion of sewage being
treated in Syria has halved since the conflict began.
This presents a huge risk of disease outbreak,
especially as clean water becomes more and more
scarce. In some areas, water supply is now down to a
third of pre-crisis levels; in some parts of Aleppo, for
instance, water is only pumped for four hours a day.33
An unsafe refuge
Before the conflict began, thousands of people
fleeing conflict from elsewhere in the region had
sought refuge in Syria. These people are particularly
vulnerable now (see box). For example, before the
conflict, an estimated 10,000 Palestinian refugees were
living in Der’a camp in south-west Syria. Water and
sanitation provision was poor even then; now, the
facilities have closed altogether.34

The impact of war on children

Now, shortage of fuel and hard currency, disruption
to supply chains and damage to factories have all
massively slowed production of medical supplies.
Wealthier Syrians are reportedly travelling to
neighbouring countries for healthcare; but, as with
heating and food, the medicines that are available are
priced beyond the reach of the poorest families.30

Palestinian and Iraqi refugees in Syria
Not all those affected by the conflict are Syrians.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Iraqis,
Afghans and others are in Syria having sought refuge
from violence and insecurity back home. There
are believed to be more than 500,000 Palestinian
refugees and 480,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria.35
Approximately 40% of these are children – though
children under five are often not registered, so this
is probably an underestimate.36
Refugees in Syria were particularly vulnerable even
before the conflict. For example, children born to
Palestinian refugee families were less likely to be
enrolled in school than Syrian children, and more
likely to die before their fifth birthday.37 Also, a
high proportion of Iraqi refugees – two in every
five – had special protection or medical needs that
required targeted support.38
The outbreak of conflict in the country these
refugees originally came to for protection means
they are now much more vulnerable and face new
risks. For instance, Yarmouk camp, a Palestinian
refugee settlement in Damascus, has become a

battleground; there is fighting almost every day
in or around the camp. Three-quarters of the
150,000 residents have once again had to flee, and
because some borders to neighbouring countries
are closed to Palestinians, they remain trapped
inside Syria.39 The United Nations Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA) provides essential assistance
to Palestinian refugees, but insecurity has forced it
to halt its operations in many camps in Syria. As a
result, only 40% of its clinics are still open, and more
than 80% of school-age Palestinian refugee children
are unable to attend school.40
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have already fled Syria,
and UNHCR estimates that a third of those still
in Syria will leave during 2013.41 Most of them will
probably go back to Iraq, despite the continuing
insecurity there and the lack of jobs and basic
social services.42
Refugees in Syria already faced difficult and
uncertain futures. Now, finding themselves engulfed
in conflict once again, their options are even more
limited, their situation even more desperate.

9

childhood under fire

Danger on all sides
The conflict in Syria has had terrible repercussions
for children’s lives and health. When the conflict is
visited directly on children, the consequences are
truly harrowing. These threats to children are what
the next section describes.
When we ask parents how their children are coping
with their experiences, the most common reply
is that it has left children with a pervading and
persistent feeling of fear. When children are given
the opportunity to draw pictures of their recent
experiences, they fill the pages with violent and
angry images of bloodshed, explosions, and the
trappings of war. Parents also say that their children
are showing signs of significant emotional distress,
such as nightmares, bed wetting, or becoming
uncharacteristically aggressive or withdrawn; any
loud noise reminds the children of the violence
they fled from. 43
A new study by a research team from Bahcesehir
University in Turkey, found some chilling evidence of
what children are experiencing. Two-thirds of those
interviewed had been in a terrifying situation where
they felt they were in great danger; one child in three
had been hit, kicked, or shot at. And three in every
four children interviewed – children like nine-year-old
Ibrahim – had experienced the death of at least one
loved one.44
As documented in the UN Secretary-General’s 2012
report on children and armed conflict, some abuses
in Syria are so heinous that they represent grave
violations of children’s rights under UN Security
Council Resolution 1612.45 Children are being
killed and maimed every day in Syria. The conflict
has claimed the lives of some 70,000 people and an
estimated 300,000 are believed to have been injured.46

Noor, 8
“We were all scared. Because of the shelling, we
were hiding in the bathroom and the kitchen. The
shelling happened every day for a while… Every day,
in the evening.
“This is what I remember of Syria. No, nothing good,
no good memories. I remember how my uncle and
my grandmother died, because I saw it… What do I
remember of Syria? Blood.This is it.”

10

Ibrahim, 9
Ibrahim’s mother and two older brothers died
when their home came under attack.
“When I heard shelling in Syria at night, it always
woke me up. Sometimes I stood outside to see where
the noise was coming from and sometimes it made
me really afraid, so I just stayed inside. I used to
tell my siblings they better stay inside because of
the shelling.
“I miss the days my mum took me to the playground
in Syria. My mum is dead, and my two older brothers
too… They died from the shelling of our home.
Nadeem was my brother and my best friend. I wish
I can have fun with him and go to school with him
again.
“I just wish they were still alive. It makes me want to
go back to Syria. When I return, I want to visit their
graves and say ‘I miss you’.”

While we do not know just how many of these
casualties are children, hospital reports show that an
increasing number of children are being admitted with
burns, gunshot wounds, and injuries from explosions.47
Every day, children remain at risk of death and injury,
including permanent disability. Children are not being
spared from the violence.
The use of explosive weapons in populated areas has
killed and maimed children as well as adults. In January
2013 alone, there were more than 3,000 recorded
‘security incidents’ – clashes or attacks – in Syria;
80% of them involved heavy weapons such as mortars,
shells and rockets. This fighting was concentrated
in urban areas; in Damascus, 247 incidents were
recorded in just two communities that were formerly
home to 1.8 million people.48
The blast and fragmentation effects of explosive
weapons cover a wide area, and do not discriminate
between civilians and military targets. All parties
to the conflict are using these kinds of weapons in
built-up areas where many families remain trapped,
with government forces in particular using air strikes
and Scud missiles.49 There are multiple reports from
across Syria of blasts from explosive weapons killing
several children at once – sometimes from the same
family, sometimes infants less than three months old.50

The threat of sexual violence

Displacement and separation

Sexual violence is another grave violation of children’s
rights. There is some evidence that girls and boys as
young as 12 are being subjected to sexual violence,
including physical torture of their genitals, and rape.52
The prevalence of such abuses is hard to establish, as
survivors often do not report the attacks for fear of
dishonouring their family or bringing about reprisals.
But fear of sexual violence is repeatedly cited to Save
the Children as one of the main reasons for families
fleeing their homes.

Faced with appalling and indiscriminate violence, the
only choice left to millions of people has been to
flee their homes. These displaced people may find
shelter, but they may not find security: once they
have left their homes, families may be repeatedly
displaced as the fighting spreads, each time carrying
with them harrowing memories and fewer and fewer
possessions. According to one survey of Syrians who
fled to Mafraq governorate in Jordan, more than 60%
had been displaced twice or more before crossing the
border, each time settling for a week or more before
being forced to flee again.54 In some situations, people
have no time to pick up even a coat or proper shoes;
they literally have to run for their lives.

There are also reports that early marriage of young
girls is increasing. This can be understood as desperate
families like Um Ali’s struggling with ever-narrowing
options to survive. They may be trying to reduce the
number of mouths they have to feed or hoping that
a husband will be able to provide greater security
for their daughter from the threat of sexual violence.
However, anecdotal reports from organisations working
inside Syria indicate that early marriage is sometimes
being used as a ‘cover’ for sexual exploitation, where
girls are divorced after a short time and sent back
to their families.53 In such a chaotic and dangerous
environment, children and young girls in particular
are at much greater risk of abduction and trafficking,
especially for purposes of sexual exploitation.

The impact of war on children

Aside from their devastating immediate impact,
explosive weapons also leave a potentially fatal legacy.
As much as 11% of explosive ordinance does not
explode on impact; these explosive remnants of war
are now scattered across Syria, a country where
people have had no previous experience of dealing
with such hazards. Children face the risk of death or
serious injury either from playing with unexploded
shells or simply through being forced to live and move
around in a landscape scattered with unexploded
remnants. Even fighters have been killed from trying
to deal with unexploded grenades.51

In the panic of escape, many children become
separated from their families. In other cases,
parents make the tough decision to send children
away to relatives in areas deemed less insecure.
This is why, in one area of Syria where Save the
Children is responding to the crisis, a quarter of
families are hosting other people’s children. As the
situation deteriorates further, many foster families
will no longer be able to cope, increasing the risk
that children may be handed over to institutions
or abandoned to live on the street and fend for
themselves in a country at war.55
The recruitment of children
by armed groups or forces
There is a growing pattern of armed groups on both
sides of the conflict recruiting children under 18
as porters, guards, informers or fighters. For many
children and their families, this is seen as a source of
pride. But some children are forcibly recruited into
military activities, and in some cases children as young
as eight have been used as human shields.56

Drawings by Syrian refugee children

11

childhood under fire

The use of children in combat is a grave violation
of their rights; it contravenes international law and
commitments made by both parties to the conflict.
It also puts the children involved at enormous risk
of death, injury or torture. One monitoring group
affiliated with the opposition, the Syria Violations
Documenting Center, has documented the deaths
of at least 17 children associated with armed groups
since the start of the conflict. Many other children in
armed groups have been severely injured; some have
been permanently disabled.57
Thousands, if not millions of children in Syria have
experienced appalling abuses during the war. In front
of high-level representatives of the international
community in Kuwait in June 2012, the UN’s UnderSecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie
Amos, highlighted the urgent need for psychosocial
support for infants and children – like Hamma’s
youngest daughter – to deal with what they are
going through.

Hamma
“My other daughter, Sham, is one year and seven
months. Do you know what her first word was?
‘Enfijar’ [Explosion]. Her first word! That’s why we
left, that’s why we ran. My daughter’s first word is
explosion. It is a tragedy. We felt constantly as if we
were about to die.”

Education under attack
It is difficult to know the full extent of the disruption
to children’s education caused by the war in Syria,
given the relative scarcity of data. But the illustrative
data that do exist, and the information Save the
Children has been able to gather, are deeply worrying.
It is clear that education is part of the front line
of the war on children. Schools are protected by
international human rights law; they should be safe
places for children to play, learn and develop. But in
Syria, schools have come under direct attack, denying
children their right to education in a safe learning
environment. An eight-year-old boy from Aleppo
refused to talk for more than two weeks after fleeing
Syria. When he eventually did speak, his first words
were, “They burned my school.” 58

12

Children like Noura, fleeing from the fighting, just
want to be back at school, back to normality, learning
and playing with their friends.
“I liked going to school in Syria. We used to write and play.
When I want to remember something happy, it is playing
with my friends on the swings. We laughed. I miss them.
“At the beginning… there wasn’t shelling at my school, but
after some time the shelling started. I stopped going to
school when the shelling started. It wasn’t safe. I feel sad
that my school was burned because my school reminds
me of my friends. I love going to school.
“I would hear the shelling… I would get scared and try
to hide. One day I was with my friends playing in the sun
and sand. We were collecting the sand, and putting it in
a bucket, then we flipped it. We made a castle like that,
always.Then a sound from the mosque shouted ‘RUN,
RUN’. We ran away to our houses, and sat inside because
we knew the shelling started. We ran very fast. I was
afraid that shrapnel would hit me.
“We were terrified, and cried a lot when this happened.
The mosque speaker sounds the alarm on the incoming
shelling, so we can seek shelter and hide. Sometimes we
heard the mosque alarms and sometimes we didn’t.
“I came home, we hid in the living room and we prayed.
I prayed that my brother and sisters will stay safe. I also
prayed for my school not to be destroyed.”
Noura, 10

In Syria, before the conflict, access to basic education
was free and more than 90% of primary school-aged
children were enrolled – one of the highest rates in
the Middle East.59 But the conflict is undoing all those
achievements, denying children the right to education,
depriving them of a safe learning environment, and
threatening their futures as well as that of the country.
In other conflict settings where Save the Children
works, once children have been forced to drop out
of school, their aspirations and faith in the education
system (especially state schools) are severely dashed.
The longer children are out of school, the less likely
they are ever to return. Millions of children and young
people in Syria may never regain the chance to fulfil
their true potential.
Some schools have closed because displaced families
are living in them, as they had nowhere else to stay.
An estimated 1 million people are living in schools
and public buildings not designed to be lived in, and so
lacking proper heating and sanitation.60 In one area of
Syria where Save the Children is responding, during

Um Ali has three children.
“There has been no school for two
years. Because of this, my son missed
his baccalaureate, and my daughter
missed her 11th grade. It’s too dangerous
to go to school – they are being shelled,
and even if they are still there, you get
shot at if you try to get there.

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

Um Ali

“My daughter, she is 16 and she loved school.
She was the first in her class, and she wanted
to become an architect. But this war…
we were too worried for her. We could not
protect her, so we had to marry her. I know
that men are hurting women, old women,
single women – everyone. We needed her to
have a protector.
“We couldn’t let her go outside at all. And if
someone comes inside your house, you cannot
defend yourself as just a woman. If they
come in, what will her father do? Sit aside
and watch? They were attacking women.
Her father told her this is the only solution.
There are no schools. One year, two years, no
schools. What about marriage? ‘Your cousin
is a good man, take him, he is good.’ So she
said ‘As you wish’. But she did not want to get
married, she wanted to study. But there were
no more schools. So… she was married. This
is happening a lot within Syria, many women
I know are marrying their daughters – even
younger than 16 – to protect them.
“What do people need most? People in Syria
need everything. They need help, they need
to be saved. People are dying. People are
dying and there is slaughter and the rest of
the world is just watching. There is no help
from outside. They keep holding meetings and
that’s it. They are just… watching. We are
calling for them, but no one is listening.”

13

childhood under fire

the bitter winter months, school benches were stolen
for firewood; desperate, understandable measures
to stay warm, but further erosion of children’s
opportunities to learn and play.
Thousands more schools have been put out of use
by the fighting. Attacks on schools represent grave
violations of children’s rights because of their direct
and lasting impact on children. Yet according to the
Syrian government, 2,000 schools have been damaged
in the conflict; one UN survey found that a quarter of
schools in one area had been damaged or destroyed.61
This not only makes children’s place of learning
unsafe or unusable; it can also make children afraid
of returning to school even when the fighting is over.
There have also been reports of parents not allowing
their children – especially girls, like 13-year-old Saba
– to go to school for fear of being attacked, caught in
crossfire, or directly shot at.62 As a result, attendance
rates, particularly for displaced children, vary widely.
According to one estimate, more than 200,000
children displaced by the fighting in Syria are missing
out on education.63
In one area, Save the Children has witnessed
incredible dedication on the part of teachers who
have no materials to work with, but teach what they
can remember by heart. Despite threats against
them, displacement, and the destruction of schools,
do not lessen their conviction that children need to
continue their education. These dedicated efforts are
enough to keep education going for 200 children.64
But they are not able to provide the standard of basic
education that the children have a right to, and there
are hundreds of thousands more who are getting no
formal education at all.
The next section describes how the war is
depriving children and their families of enough food
to survive on.

Going hungry
“What we struggled for the most in Syria was to get food.
Even the water tanks were shot at to leave houses without
water.We almost starved to death.
“During the conflict, bread supplies were completely cut
off from my town. I saw it with my own eyes – a truck
carrying flour into the town to supply the bakeries, and the
truck was forced to turn back, and this is how our bread
supply was cut.
“They cut our water, they cut our electricity, our food and
our bread. We managed to make it through, by uniting. If
one of the neighbours was able to get bread, they shared it
with the rest… This is reality.”
Faris, father of six

Before the conflict began, although Syria was
considered a middle-income country, it had
relatively high levels of stunting – a result of chronic
malnutrition.65 Acute malnutrition was rare, and
remains so.66 However, as the fighting continues and
families are finding that accessing nutritious food
becomes ever more difficult, expensive, and even
dangerous, there are the first signs of an increase in
the number of children suffering malnutrition.67
According to the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),
2.5 million Syrians are in need of emergency food
assistance.68 However, one recent assessment in
the north of the country estimated that 3.2 million
people need food assistance in 58 sub-districts alone,
suggesting that the situation may be much worse than
previously thought.69
The fighting has drastically curtailed food production
in the country. Jamal, like 20% of farmers, reports
that it was too unsafe to harvest any of his crops.
Insecurity has also hampered cross-border trade

Saba, 13
“We left Syria because there were lots of explosions but
we didn’t want to leave our house. We were injured and
we got scared, that’s why we left. What do I remember?
People being hurt. People dying… In front of my eyes.
“They were hitting schools. Many children would die, so
we got scared and stopped going to school. No children
would go to school, it was too dangerous. It makes me
sad that I’m not going to school.

14

“Before the crisis we used to play outside. We weren’t
scared. Now? We stay inside and be afraid. That is it.
“We should stop the shelling. For me, explosions lead
to destruction. And more than that – the shelling makes
people get injured, and it makes people die.The only
effect is destruction, death and wounded people. My
home has been destroyed. We were in it when it was
hit, and when it fell. I feel as though all of Syria has
been destroyed.”

to cut down on the number of meals they and their
children eat each day.74 “We were living from the food
we had stored away – jam, a little bread,” Hamma told
us. She was heavily pregnant when she fled Syria with
her one-year-old daughter. “Prices are so high – food is
ten times as much as it was. All I want for my baby is a
safe life. That is my only hope.”

“We stopped leaving our houses because of the danger,
which meant no work and no more income. It was
impossible to go to the field and check on my crops.
Before the conflict, we harvested our olives and grapes, but
for the past year, I swear to you not one farmer harvested
a single olive. Not one human being.Whoever decided to
visit his crops, knows he is going to die.”

Access to affordable food is a daily challenge for
families in Syria, but malnutrition in infants and very
young children can be staved off if they get the right
food and micronutrients, for which breastfeeding
is essential. Traditionally in Syria, the majority of
mothers do not breastfeed their infants, but Save the
Children has seen indications of a further reduction –
between 15% and 50% – in the proportion of mothers
breastfeeding.75 This is because of a widespread
perception that the stress women are under reduces
their ability to produce enough breast milk. Another
factor is that there has been uncontrolled distribution
of breast milk substitutes such as infant formula.76
Given the poor sanitation conditions many families
are living under, described earlier in the report, we
have seen how this is contributing to more infants
and children suffering diarrhoea.77

Jamal, father of eight

The scarcity of food has contributed to soaring
food prices, exacerbated by the closure of many
food markets due to insecurity. This has ended up
centralising supply in private bakeries and leaving
price-setting in fewer hands.72 In Aleppo, which has
seen heavy fighting, the price of bread is now up to
ten times what it was when the conflict began two
years ago.73
For many people, the price rises mean they are unable
to feed their families. Even for those who have enough
money to buy food, the risk of being caught up in the
fighting makes joining the long queues at bakeries
too dangerous to attempt. As we see through Save
the Children’s response to the crisis, few displaced
families have any food stocks at all. They are having

The impact of war on children

of food and other essentials like cooking oil; and in
some cases, road closures and fighting have disrupted
deliveries of food relief (this is discussed further in
the next section).70 Shortages of flour – a key staple –
have been reported in most parts of the country due
to damage to mills, closure of factories, lack of fuel for
delivery, road closures, and insecurity.71

This is just one small indication of the complexity of
the situation facing children and their families in Syria.
The next section outlines some of the main challenges
that Save the Children and other agencies face in
trying to help children in Syria in the context of the
conflict raging around them.

15

Humanity’s best efforts?

The enormous humanitarian needs in Syria
and the widespread violations of children’s
rights demand action. Humanitarian agencies,
including Syrian and international NGOs and
UN agencies, have already mobilised to help
all those people they can reach.
But the challenges involved in the humanitarian
response in Syria are immense. Some of the biggest
issues concern ongoing insecurity, limited access,
constraints on implementation capacity, challenges to
coordination, and insufficient funding, which are all
described in more detail below.
While it is impossible to say with any certainty, there
are believed to be millions of people in Syria who
need assistance and who are not receiving enough,
if any at all.78 There have been recent breakthroughs
in humanitarian access, with some UN agencies
succeeding in negotiating access across conflict lines
to deliver essentials such as food and blankets.79
While these are much-needed positive signs, the
overall picture remains bleak. It is likely that millions
of children are not getting the help and protection
they need.
Insecurity: The most evident constraint to reaching
the millions who need assistance is insecurity.
Crossfire, indiscriminate use of force, explosive
weapons, landmines, unexploded remnants of war,
kidnapping; the list of threats to aid workers goes
on, and the threats are real – 15 aid workers in Syria
have lost their lives in the past two years, trying to
get assistance to civilians caught up in the conflict.80
Some of them were directly targeted despite wearing
internationally recognised humanitarian emblems.81
Ambulances have been directly attacked too: four out
of five Syrian ambulances have been damaged during
the conflict.82
Whether indiscriminate or targeted, attacks on
aid workers and aid convoys make some areas too
risky to operate in. For instance, the UN agency
responsible for providing assistance for half a million
Palestinian refugees in Syria (UNRWA) had to close
16

most of its operations in Yarmouk, where 150,000
Palestinians had been living.83 Crossfire, shelling
and aerial bombardment mean agencies are taking
significant risks to reach those in need.
Assent of parties to the conflict: The conflict in
Syria has created a complex patchwork, with different
armed groups and forces active in different areas.
There are some large areas where control is relatively
unified, and where large numbers of people can
gain assistance, if security allows. In other areas, the
situation is much more fragmented and dynamic, so
aid agencies must negotiate with numerous factions
to move around and reach people affected by the
crisis. Sometimes more than 20 checkpoints must
be negotiated for one journey, with each negotiation
taking time; it only takes one checkpoint to refuse
passage to mean that the agency has to halt an aid
delivery, with no one gaining assistance.
For Save the Children, humanitarian impartiality
is our only passport to respond in Syria, meaning
we have already been able to provide assistance to
thousands of children. Denying children their right to
receive humanitarian assistance by denying agencies
access to them is a grave violation of children’s rights
and contravenes international humanitarian law.
Experience tells us that negotiations to secure access
based on humanitarian principles will continue to be
difficult, and necessary.
Capacity to deliver: Prior to the conflict there
were very few organisations – local or international
– with sufficient technical and operational capacity
for a humanitarian response in Syria. As the conflict
has escalated, the UN and NGOs have been trying
to increase the scale of their operations, within the
constraints of access and insecurity. To complement
direct operations, many agencies, including Save
the Children, work with Syrian partners who are
able to deliver a humanitarian response on a large
scale. However, there are not enough experienced
local organisations working in accordance with
humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality
to match the enormous needs.

Naziha, 17
“One evening I was at my house with my
husband and I was holding my daughter in
my arms, breastfeeding. We heard a noise
outside. Something hit the house and I don’t
remember anything after that… All I know
is that after, I became disabled – I can’t
move my arm or my leg. Now I can’t stand
or sit without help.
“There were many people who were
injured or who became disabled in Syria
like this. This cannot go on. Someone should
put an end to it. People are losing their
children, brothers, parents. Some people
are getting shot. Others are unable to leave
the country. Children in Syria are dying, or
becoming disabled like I was. Until when
will this keep going?”

Photo: Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children

childhood under fire

For most agencies – international and Syrian – getting
hold of the commodities needed to deliver life-saving
assistance can be extremely challenging. Whether it
is medicines, food, blankets and tents, or people with
the necessary expertise and visas, there are significant
obstacles to increasing the scale of operations in Syria
to meet the immense and urgent needs.
Humanitarian principles and coordination:
Due to the difficulties of access and insecurity, there
is no central focus in the country for ensuring that
humanitarian community has a clear, impartial, national
picture of the needs and the response. For example,
many of the humanitarian organisations operating
in Syria are not present in Damascus. Conversely, of
those organisations operating from Damascus, many
are not present in places like Aleppo, in the north.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) has been proactively working with
non-governmental partners to find creative solutions
to this dilemma. It is not simply an issue of avoiding
duplication and filling the gaps, important though
this is. It is also about ensuring that the response is
based on humanitarian need, rather than political
considerations.
Some Syrian diaspora groups with strong political
affiliations have given substantial financial and technical
support to groups on whichever is ‘their side’ of the
conflict. In addition, the Syrian conflict has deeply
divided the international community, with some
individuals, groups or governments funding only
one side or the other, regardless of what is best for
children and their families in need. The humanitarian
imperative is that the priority for the flow of essential
aid to Syria must be to reach those who need it most.
Acting on that imperative gives agencies best chance of
security in what is a complex and fast-moving conflict.

18

Operating in this context requires constant vigilance
and negotiation. Given the access challenges described
earlier, all sides to the conflict want to have a role in
the targeting of aid into the country. However, it is
vital that agencies delivering humanitarian assistance
remain impartial.
Funding: In 2012, funding for the international
humanitarian appeal for Syria fell $130 million short
of the requirements identified by the UN – a shortfall
of more than a third.84 As the humanitarian needs
escalated throughout the year, this not only meant
that agencies in Syria could not provide much of the
necessary assistance; it also meant that they were still
trying to increase the scale of their operations.
By the end of January 2013, the appeal received a
huge boost: international donors pledged $1.5 billion
to support the aid effort, including substantial
amounts from the European Commission, Kuwait,
the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and
the United States.85
These promises of funding are very welcome, but
they need to be urgently translated into real funds for
agencies on the ground. At the time of writing this
report, UN figures showed only 2.9% of the required
funding for the emergency education response had
been provided, only 2.6% for community services
(which includes programmes to improve child
protection), and a shortfall of $72 million for health –
88% of the requested funds.86
While sufficient funding is vital for an effective
humanitarian response in Syria, the challenges set
out here make one thing clear: funding alone is not
sufficient. The next section sets out what Save the
Children believes needs to happen to help address
the humanitarian suffering.

Recommendations

As the conflict continues, so does the
impact of the war on children. Above
all else, Save the Children calls on the
UN Security Council to overcome its
divisions and urgently unite behind a
plan that will bring about an end to
the violence in Syria.
Ending the pain that this report sets out will not be
easy, but it is possible. Just as the waging of this war
is a result of human actions and decisions, so can be
its end. The appalling suffering of Yasmine and Ibrahim
and Naziha and the thousands like them demands an
end to the conflict now.
Tragically, but realistically, peace will take some time to
realise, and many more lives will be lost or destroyed
in the meantime. The international community
must press urgently and explicitly for parties
to the conflict to take specific measures to
improve and secure humanitarian access and
to ensure the protection of children. Other
recommendations addressed to specific actors are
detailed below.

Parties to the conflict
Save the Children takes no side in this conflict. All
those who are fighting in Syria have a responsibility
under national and international humanitarian and
human rights law to protect civilians and specifically
children, who are entitled to special protection. All
parties to the conflict should commit publicly,
and take immediate measures, to:
• allow unfettered, safe access by humanitarian
agencies trying to provide assistance to those
in need, including access across the lines of
the conflict
• ease any bureaucratic constraints on agencies
increasing their capacity to respond, allowing
humanitarian agencies, their staff and supplies
to reach those in need. This should apply to
all sectors of humanitarian activity, including

•

•
•

•

protection, and clearance of unexploded remnants
of war
ensure that children and all civilians and civilian
objects are not targeted by armed action.
This should include targeting, occupation, or
military use of medical facilities and personnel,
schools, sites for internally displaced people, and
humanitarian agencies and workers. Civilians
should be allowed safe passage out of areas of
active military engagement
end the use of explosive weapons in populated
areas
cease the recruitment and use of children under
the age of 18 in armed groups and forces, release
all children currently associated with armed groups
and forces, and cooperate with the return of these
children to their families, as well as necessary
systems for recovery and reintegration
cooperate with the UN to ensure that all
violations of children’s rights are documented so
that those responsible can be held to account.

The United Nations
The UN has classified the Syria response as a level 3
– the highest category possible. This is a clear
recognition of the scale and urgency of humanitarian
need in Syria. This categorisation requires the
appointment of a ‘Super’ Humanitarian Coordinator,
activation of Clusters for coordination, and the
agreement of a strategic approach. The UN should
take action on the following areas:
The UN Secretary-General, the UN-LAS
(League of Arab States) Joint Special
Representative for Syria, the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for
Children and Armed Conflict, and OCHA
should expressly urge parties to the conflict to end
violations of children’s rights and to take the specific
steps outlined above with utmost urgency to ensure
that children are protected from the conflict.

19

childhood under fire

OCHA should:
• work towards a sustained staff presence, where
security allows, in its coordination hubs outside of
Damascus to work with government and nongovernment actors to improve humanitarian access
• use its presence in the region to complement the
work of the Damascus Humanitarian Country
Team to develop a ‘whole of Syria’ picture of the
humanitarian needs and response. This is a means
to identifying gaps in coverage and pressing for
humanitarian access through all channels to reach
those people
• press for activation of all Clusters, including
education and protection
• prioritise, at the highest levels, strengthening
coordination with donors and all aid actors from
the Gulf and the Middle East. This should also
promote decision-making based on impartial needs
assessments, as well as avoiding duplication, and
maximising coverage by all actors in the response
• undertake contingency planning for humanitarian
needs in Syria with all relevant partners, ensuring
that this informs planning for the refugee response,
emergency preparedness, and post-conflict planning.

International donors,
including those from
the Gulf region
The pledges made at the Kuwait donor conference in
January 2013 for the Syria response and the refugee
crisis will allow a significant increase in life-saving
assistance. The crisis will be prolonged, however: the
need for emergency relief and help with recovery will
continue long beyond any cessation of hostilities. With
this and the wider context in mind, all donors should:
• commit to supporting agencies that are delivering
assistance on the ground, with support that is:
– needs-based: in line with the principles of
Good Humanitarian Donorship, prioritisation
should not be linked to any political agenda but
rather according to greatest need, including for
Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, or any other group.87
To facilitate this, donors should strengthen
implementing partners’ capacity to undertake
needs assessments inside Syria

20

– quickly disbursed: recent pledges should
be turned into committed funding as soon as
possible and disbursed to agencies delivering
assistance on the ground
– sustained: humanitarian needs will continue
to increase as long as the conflict lasts, and
people will need assistance long after the
conflict is over
– flexible, including supporting humanitarian
preparedness to respond if the situation
changes and access improves
– coordinated: donors should ensure that their
humanitarian funding is coordinated with other
donors’ funding
• advocate for increased humanitarian access by
any possible channel, and for greater humanitarian
presence on the ground
• fund integrated approaches across all sectors for
an effective holistic response, including:
– protection: children need psychosocial
support; mapping and clearing explosive
remnants of war is essential; and protection
from all abuses, including grave violations of
children’s rights, must be supported
– education: this is to protect children now,
but also to protect their development and that
of Syria once the conflict is over
• continue to support the humanitarian response
reaching refugees in neighbouring countries and
work with regional governments to ensure that
borders are kept open for refugees.

Actors delivering
humanitarian assistance
There is a range of actors delivering humanitarian
assistance in Syria, from established international
NGOs to relatively new community groups that may
have strong affiliations with one side to the conflict.
We urge all these groups to:
• commit to sharing information regularly with other
humanitarian partners, including OCHA, to ensure
that a full picture of needs and responses can be
developed, notwithstanding the need to manage
risks to the security of programme staff and
beneficiaries

Neighbouring countries
As of March 2013, more than 1 million Syrians had
fled to neighbouring countries, along with thousands
of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees who had been living in
Syria. Those governments who have maintained open
borders and are generously facilitating the response
to refugees’ needs are performing an essential
humanitarian service. Neighbouring countries should:
• keep borders open for humanitarian purposes,
including allowing entry for all those fleeing Syria
to find safe refuge
• continue to work with humanitarian agencies to
ensure a reliable humanitarian supply chain for
refugee response and for operations in Syria.

recommendations

• commit to upholding the Red Cross/Red Crescent
and NGO Code of Conduct, ensuring that
assistance is not linked to any political agenda
but is delivered according to where there is
greatest need88
• conduct joint needs assessments, coordinating with
other agencies to ensure that the methodology
is compatible with that used in other areas of
the country. All assessments should include child
protection elements
• work with communities to have IDP camps,
schools, and hospitals declared as ‘zones of peace’,
agreed with armed groups and forces (learning
from experience in other countries such as Nepal,
for instance).

S Ozer, SR Sirin and B Oppedal (2012) ‘Bahcesehir Study of Syrian
Refugee Children in Turkey’, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey. This
report, Childhood Under Fire, cites statistics from the Bahcesehir study,
which is available from the authors on request.

This is an estimate based on different indications of a) need, and
b) response. According to the Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response
Plan (SHARP), 4 million people are in need across Syria. However, the joint
assessment overseen by the Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU) in 58 of
Syria’s 128 sub-districts found that 3.2 million people in these areas alone
needed assistance, suggesting that the true figure may be much higher than
the SHARP estimate. Food assistance has reportedly reached 1.5 million
people out of the 2.5 million identified by the SHARP as in need of food
assistance. Distributions of non-food items have reached only 30% of the
1.5 million people identified as in need of such items. OCHA (2013) ‘Syria
Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan (SHARP, 1 January–30 June 2013).’
www.unocha.org/cap/appeals/humanitarian-assistance-response-plan-syria1-january-30-june-2013, last viewed 1 March 2013

Child Protection Working Group (2013) ‘Child Protection in Syria:
Current situation and priorities’, p 2; also observation from Save the
Children’s work. The Child Protection Working Group (CPWG) is the
global level forum for coordination and collaboration on child protection
in humanitarian settings.

UN News Centre (2012) ‘Violence in Syria forces more than 10,000
Iraqi refugees to leave country – UN’, www.un.org/apps/news/story.
asp?NewsID=42539 last accessed 1 March 2013; see also Refugees
International (2013) ‘Iraq’, www.refugeesinternational.org/where-we-work/
middle-east/iraq; last accessed 1 March 2013
42

43

Observation from Save the Children’s work

44

Ozer et al (2012) (see note 3)

UN Secretary-General (2012) ‘Children and Armed Conflict: Report
of the Secretary General’, April 2012 www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.
asp?symbol=S/2012/261last accessed 4 March 2013. The six grave
violations of children’s rights are: recruitment and use of children, killing
and maiming of children, rape and other grave sexual violence, abductions,
attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access to
children.
45

See, for instance, H Dodd and R Perkins (2012) Wide of the Mark: Syria
and the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, Action on Armed
Violence, www.inew.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/AOAV_Wide_
of_the_Mark1.pdf last accessed 1 March 2013
50

Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children in
Armed Conflict (2012) ‘CAAC report on events in Syria (March 2011 to
March 2012)’, pp 4–5
Human Rights Watch (2012) ‘Syria: Opposition using children in conflict’,
29 November, www.hrw.org/news/2012/11/29/syria-opposition-usingchildren-conflict last accessed 1 March 2013; also interview with human
rights analyst, 22 January 2013
57

Acute malnutrition means recent and severe weight loss as a result of
acute food shortage and/or illness. It is measured by the ratio of weight
to height or the circumference of the child’s mid-upper arm. Chronic
malnutrition results from, among other things, a persistently inadequate
diet, over a longer period. Consequently, the child is stunted and/or
underweight.
66

Observation from Save the Children’s work; see also UNICEF (see
note 65)
75

ReliefWeb (2013) ‘UN agencies and NGOs call for appropriate feeding
of infants and young children in the Syria emergency’, 28 January, http://
reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/un-agencies-and-ngos-callappropriate-feeding-infants-and-young-children last accessed 1 March 2013
76

For more information on Good Humanitarian Donorship, see their
website: www.goodhumanitariandonorship.org/gns/home.aspx.
87

‘The Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red
Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief’ is available at www.ifrc.
org/Docs/idrl/I259EN.pdf
88

The impact of two years of conflict in Syria

COVER Photo: jonathan hyams/save the children

Childhood under fire

“My message to the world? The war should stop in
Syria so we could be able to go back to our country.”
Nidal, 6 (name changed to protect identity)

From the very beginning of the crisis in Syria, children
have been its forgotten victims – facing death, trauma and
suffering, and deprived of basic humanitarian aid.
Childhood under Fire shows how the conflict is affecting all
aspects of children’s lives.
It goes on to look at the challenges in the humanitarian
response, and puts forward recommendations to all
parties to the conflict, the United Nations, donor
governments, agencies delivering humanitarian assistance,
and governments of neighbouring countries.